The Pirate Queen (36 page)

The next morning Saphora got Mel’s number from Tobias, who had slept on a hotel cot in their room—Jamie’s family would need to be called. After spending the night in a nearby La Quinta, Saphora rang Mel’s doorbell precisely at ten o’clock, the time he had asked her to drop by. He answered the door wearing a shirt not buttoned, his belt hanging open. He gave Saphora a set of keys to the house, explaining each one.

“We thought we would make calls for your family, if that helps,” said Saphora. Jamie had mentioned a sister.

“I called her sister, Dora.” There was a tone to his voice. Jamie had mentioned Dora was a welfare mother.

Saphora thought Jamie’s mother and father were still living but Mel said no.

Gwennie turned on her managerial magic. Marcy was right beside her with a pad and pen. Between the two of them, they sat in Jamie’s kitchen calling every relative from Myrtle Beach to Oregon.

Jamie’s kitchen was just like her, small but inviting. Tobias’s red Pomeranian, Fang, kept running in and out of the kitchen, so Tobias threw the dog a ball. But Fang only lay down and whimpered. “He’s looking for Mom,” said Tobias.

Jamie had put an oversized black dining room table right at the edge of the galley of cabinets. Even though there was a formal dining room, it seemed all of the household activity was done around that table. Jamie had organized Tobias’s life so that he could live as well as any boy. She had tacked a calendar to the wall scheduling his meds and activities. He had baseball practice on Saturdays. There was a photograph of the baseball team seated around the black table. They were eating cake. Tobias took trumpet lessons. Jamie apparently seated him at the table to practice while she cooked his supper because there was his little music stand and book. There was a math book and a book of kitchen science experiments. Saphora could visualize Jamie counting out his meds at that table.

Mel crossed the kitchen, buttoning the peach-colored shirt. A van load of relatives pulled up, and he went out to meet them. From the look of things, they were Jamie’s family.

Neighbors had brought over casseroles and honey-baked ham,
filling up Jamie’s refrigerator. Saphora got out bread and sandwich meat to save the covered dishes for the evening meals.

A woman pushed through the back kitchen door as if she had come through it a thousand times. “Are you Saphora?” she asked.

“You must be Dora, Jamie’s sister,” said Saphora.

“You women are awfully nice to call everyone,” she said. “I don’t have the energy.” Two thin teenage boys followed her into the kitchen. “This is Tom and his younger brother Stu. That wild animal coming through the door is Little Paul. Named after my ex.”

“I’m making sandwiches,” said Saphora.

“Good. My youngest, Mary, is driving me nuts. She’s a bottomless pit, that one,” said Dora.

The only girl among the brothers was a pudgy kid, her blond hair cropped right beneath her ears. She said in a voice wise beyond her years, “You didn’t make breakfast, Mama.”

“Now don’t start with me, you hear? I’m too worn out, kid.” Dora slid into the chair next to Gwennie. “Go and help your brothers unload the suitcases. I put your things in a grocery bag. Don’t scatter the stuff all over the yard neither.” She dragged a ponytail holder out of her yellow overprocessed hair and finger-styled the long, wavy strands back into the holder. “Mel, got an extra cigarette?” she asked.

Mel left the kitchen to fetch a carton.

“My mother’s car—we forgot it,” said Tobias.

Saphora said to Tom, “Do you drive?”

“Sure, ma’am. Been driving since I was fourteen,” said Tom.

“He drove us here from Myrtle,” said Dora. “He does all the driving for me now.”

“Jamie’s car is still in Kinston,” said Saphora.

Tom and his brother Stu took on the job dutifully. Tobias followed them out the door. Saphora did not think it was a good idea for him to go along, considering he’d be revisiting the scene of the accident, but he insisted.

“He’ll feel like he’s done something important,” said Marcy after the boys took off.

“I usually stay overnight here in Jamie’s guest room,” said Dora.

“You should,” said Saphora. “We’re just friends helping out.”

“I saw a nice inn on the way over,” said Gwennie. “I’ll get us rooms.”

“Just one night. Please call your brothers so they know we’re here,” said Saphora.

Mel brought a pack of cigarettes to Dora and then left them to handle the chores. “I’m calling business friends to let them know what’s going on. I’ll be in the den if you need me,” he said to Saphora. He left her alone with Dora.

Dora lowered her voice. “You know the two of them was separated, didn’t you?”

“I just found that out,” said Saphora.

“Mel, he never gave two cents for Tobias. He just thought adoption would give Jamie some purpose. He never liked staying around the house much.” She tamped another cigarette out of a red pack and mouthed, “He’s impotent.”

“I don’t need to know,” said Saphora. She put out the paper plates. “Sandwiches are ready. Mary, Little Paul, come and eat.”

“Tobias has AIDS,” said Mary.

“Shush!” said Dora. “These kids have ears bigger than Texas and mouths to match.”

“Mel will finally get to know Tobias,” said Marcy. “That’s the
good that will come of all this.” She was trying to bring her usual cheer to an otherwise bleak situation.

Mel was closing up his phone when he came into the kitchen. “Sandwiches, just in time. I’m starved. You’re a good woman, Saphora.” He picked up a ham and cheddar. “They need me to come and pick out a casket.” He surveyed all the females assembled in Jamie’s kitchen. “Who’s good at that?”

Gwennie looked at Saphora. “Sandwiches and funerals. My mother is the one to ask.” She let Fang jump into her lap. “I’ll look after the dog.”

Saphora thought about making a Gwennie-sized gag.

Marcy turned the page on her list and dialed another number. “We’re all doing our thing, Saphora. You go and do yours.” Her back was to Mel, so he could not see her bat her eyes at Saphora.

Mel said, “Sure, you’d be the best one to do it.” He asked Saphora to ride with him to Mickelson’s Funeral Home.

The weather had turned hotter than all the rest of the days that summer. Saphora stood out on the driveway while Mel cooled down the Audi. Finally he waved her inside.

“You like your Lexus?” he asked.

“It’s one of Bender’s cars. I drive a different car,” she said.

“I guess a surgeon can drive anything he wants.” He put a cigarette to his lips.

“Can you help me out? I can’t tolerate smoking in a car.”

“I’m sorry.” He brought down the cigarette.

A box of tissues was on the floorboard, the box decorated with little boys playing baseball. Saphora pulled out a tissue. The radio station was turned to a light pop station. Mel turned it off.

“Everything will remind you of her,” said Saphora.

“I’m doing okay.”

“Tobias has a lot going on. You think you’ll be able to keep up with him?”

“He’s always been hers. We couldn’t have kids. Tobias satisfied a lot of feminine urges for her.”

“Feminine urges?”

“Women have a need to look after others.”

“We do?”

“You know you do. I know what women think, that they’re like men, want to work like men, talk like men. But you’re made to raise kids. Me, I could never keep up with Tobias like Jamie. She was born to do it. Matter of fact, she lived to chase after Tobias.”

“I think it’s been hard on her.”

“My work is hard, but I love it.”

“You have it all categorized.”

“It’s not rocket science.”

“What will happen to Tobias then?”

“Dora, she’s got lots of kids. Tobias likes his cousins. It’d be like instant siblings.”

“You don’t mean to send Tobias back with Dora?”

“I can’t deny I’ve been thinking about it, what time I’ve had to think, that is.”

“Dora wants Tobias?”

“I haven’t asked her. But she loved Jamie.”

“Dora’s nothing like Jamie.” Jamie barely tolerated Dora, of that she was certain.

“I’m not saying the deal’s set in stone. I’m in shock. You know?” He coughed into one hand, holding the unlit cigarette in the other.

“Yes, but you could find support and rear him on your own.”

He did not answer but just stared out the front windshield.

“Mel, you can’t mean you’d do that to Tobias. Jamie’s provided him a good life. You can’t send him into Dora’s world. It’d be cruel.”

“Dora’s not a bad person. She’s just got low expectations. But Tobias, he’s disabled. He can’t do much better anyway.”

“Dora’s not a good mother, Mel. You can’t say she is.”

“Aren’t you judgmental?”

“It is what it is,” said Saphora.

The remaining mile to Mickelson’s Funeral Home was quiet, the sun bearing down on the black car.

Mel turned the radio back on.

Casket shopping was the last thing Saphora had counted on doing that day.

Mickelson’s chauffeur smoked outside the main entry under the overhang where guests were dropped off. He opened the door for Saphora and said to Mel, “I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Linker.”

“Tommy, you still here after all these years?”

“Work’s steady,” said Tommy. “How’s the software biz?”

“Up and down,” said Mel.

“Mr. Mickelson’s asked me to walk you to the Agatha room,” said Tommy. He dropped the cigarette into the ashtray. A rock song played in a viewing room as they passed.

“Teenager,” said Tommy. “His mother wanted the kid’s favorite band playing when she comes to approve the deceased.”

Saphora fell behind Mel a couple of steps.

“Funny. I don’t think Jamie had a favorite song,” said Mel.

“‘Both Sides Now,’” said Saphora.

“She told you that?” he asked. He stopped in the middle of the reception area.

“She liked Joni Mitchell,” said Saphora.

“Joni Mitchell we got,” said Tommy. “Everyone picks her.”

“It’s all people our age who are dying,” said Saphora.

“‘Both Sides Now.’ She never said that to me,” said Mel. “It’s one of those feel-good songs.”

“Joni Mitchell? Not likely,” said Tommy.

“It’s about the uncertainty of life,” said Saphora. “You look at it one way when you’re young. But another way when you get older.”

“That’s the song then,” said Mel. “She’d want it.”

The Mickelson brothers had staged a big, expensive display inside a glass case. A polished wood casket was covered with silk irises. A woman’s painting hung suspended over the casket. A nameplate read “In Memory of Our Mother, Agatha Mickelson.” The remaining caskets lined the walls and inner walkway of the selection room.

“I’ll leave you to decide. Gerry Mickelson will be in to help you with your arrangements,” said Tommy.

Saphora stared too long at the polished wood caskets. Mel called her down to the blue and pink colored metal models. “Saphora, you’re going to have to do this. I’m feeling dizzy. I think I’m getting hives.”

“What’s your budget?”

“There’s some insurance. And I’m coming into some money. We can do it right.”

“Do you have a preference?” she asked.

“Women like pink.”

“Not all women.”

“Like I said, you pick it,” said Mel.

She was torn between a mahogany or an oak stain.

“The mahogany, I think,” said Mel. “The angel on the inside, she’d like it.”

“That’s good.” She was feeling the need to go out for air but reconsidered since it was best to help Mel bring these matters to a close.

“What’s next?” he asked.

“They’ll want to know about the vault and all.”

“I had to bury my dad. He wanted a vault. He was scared to death of floating away,” said Mel.

“It’s up to you,” she said. “Not everyone buys them.”

The door opened at the opposite end of the sales floor. A man dressed in a brown suit poked his head into the casket room. “Mr. Linker, do you need more time?” asked Gerry Mickelson. He forced the door open a little wider. The door was sticking on a plush red carpet runner.

“He’s decided,” said Saphora. “The mahogany one with the angel embroidery.”

“Such a beautiful choice, Mr. Linker. If you’ll come down this way, I’ve got a room where you can rest your feet and finish up,” said Mickelson.

Saphora lingered over the mahogany casket. Mel nearly made it to the door left open by Gerry Mickelson when he staggered and then fainted onto the plush carpet.

19